A variety of practice putting greens for golfers are known. These putting greens may be portable, as, for example, the greens often found in homes or offices, or they may be stationary or permanently fixed to an area, such as the greens found in amusement parks or game rooms. Regardless of whether these prior putting greens are portable or stationary, they basically are similar in their structure and mode of operation. For example, most existing portable and stationary greens have fixed slopes, or no slope at all. Usually, if there is a slope, the slope is upward toward the cup, to accommodate the depth of the cup and to avoid digging a hole in the underlying surface. Furthermore, most existing portable and stationary greens usually require the golfer to retrieve each putted ball from the cup or the area surrounding the cup by approaching the cup and stooping to pick it up. While some of the existing greens include a ball retrieval mechanism, these mechanisms usually involve systems which only remove the ball found in the cup, and not balls unsuccessfully putted in the area surrounding the cup. Also, these mechanisms generally only return one ball at a time, so that a golfer must wait for a ball in the cup to be returned before hitting another ball. In some cases, these ball-in-the-cup retrieval mechanisms do not operate to return the putted ball to the golfer, but instead, the balls are returned to a holding box as a theft preventative measure. Such holding boxes are typically found in amusement parks or game rooms.
Thus, while the existing portable and stationary putting greens offer the golfer the basic essentials--a green with no or a fixed slope and a cup for the ball--they are extremely limited in their structure and operation and, consequently, unrealistic and uninteresting.
Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide a putting green assembly having an adjustable slope of multiple variations.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a putting green assembly having a multi-ball return mechanism.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a putting green assembly in which the area of the green surrounding the cup need not be elevated to accommodate the depth of the cup.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a putting green assembly that may be adjusted in length for chipping or longer putting.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a putting green assembly that retains misdirected balls on the playfield.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide a putting green assembly that is collapsible for easy shipping and storage purposes.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a putting green assembly which is portable.
Yet a further object of the present invention is to provide a putting green assembly which may be used indoors or outdoors.